Given my desire to promote physician leadership, I've been looking for an awesome physician executive to interview. Hence, I invited Dr. Barbara Loeb to tell us about her career journey. Barbara started out as your typical hard-working general internist, running a small practice in the Chicago area.
But she subsequently pursued a leadership career that put her in executive positions at several of the largest health systems in Chicago, and in a federally funded health plan.
She started her first formal managment role in the largest health system in the Chicago area, called Advocate Physician Partners, while still practicing as an independent physician in that system.
She agreed to move into the role of full-time VP for Medical Affairs at one of the newly aquired hospitals, where she developed many of the leadership and management skills she would later apply in other positions.
She left Advocate to become CMO for a hospital in the largest Catholic health system in the Chicago area, Presence Health.
She later accepted a position as chief medical officer for a new health plan in Illinois, called Land of Lincoln. I first met her there, when I represented my hospital on one of the committees she chaired for the plan.
She left that position to become CMO for a four-hospital system in Chicago that was part of Tenet Healthcare, a for-profit national health system with dozens of hospitals. When the Chicago hospitals were later spun off, Barbara became part of Loyola Medicine in Chicago, where she now serves as Population Health Associate Chief Medical Officer.
During this wide-ranging interview, we address many issues that face the emerging physician executive. And Barbara provides specific advice about how to prepare yourself for a similar career.
Go to the show notes at vitalpe.net/episode093 for links to all of the resources discussed and a transcript of the interview.
